Winter 2020-2021

issue # 138

Sound notes

The Genre of Morgan-Paige

NOTES FROM THE HAPPY PLACE

Morgan-Paige Melbourne was a child prodigy who started playing piano at three and singing and composing shortly afterwards. Soon she was winning piano competitions, and at sixteen she had her [...]

Read more » Mary Dickie »

Matthew Cardinal’s Asterisms

SPACING OUT

Asterisms, Matthew Cardinal’s debut solo album, creates audial desire paths, not necessarily conjuring anything concrete in my mind’s eye but moving like a current—or a river [...]

Read more » Mercedes Webb »

Trase Pa: Choreographing the Soundworld of David Bontemps’s Traces

In most cultures there has always been a synergetic interplay between music and dance—one informing and amplifying the other. Music exemplifies the physicality and rhythmicity that exists in [...]

Read more » Kevin A. Ormsby »

Features

What's Inside Musicworks 138?

AN EVOLVING ECOSYSTEM OF SOUNDS AND WORDS

The final issue of 2020 is is dedicated to the art of conversation . . . in music and about music. Unable to practice, perform, or listen to music together in person in a room,[...]

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DEBBY FRIDAY’S ENERGY POTENTIAL

SYNCRETIC PUNK MUSIC

Across the first few minutes of Bare Bones, the short-film debut by Vancouver artist Debby Friday, a growing, skittering sound unsettles an otherwise pastoral[...]

Read more » Brennan McCracken »

The Glittery World of Olivia Shortt

A SAFE PLACE TO PLAY

Olivia Shortt may not be a household name, but anyone who’s caught one of their eccentric stage performances—either solo or in avant-garde ensembles—has probably not forgotten[...]

Read more » Chaka V. Grier »

Araz Salek, Inquisitive Traditionalist

The adage about needing to learn the rules before breaking them is a finger-wag directed at young, ambitious artists, cautioning them not to stray from convention[...]

Read more » Nick Storring »

Suddenly Listen Expands its Chamber Space

FLEXIBLE CONFIGURATIONS

Trust. Vulnerability. Flexibility. Holistic listening. Non-hierarchical cooperation. Embrace of the unknown. Sense of adventure. These are some of the themes that arise when[...]

Read more » Monica Pearce »

Anoush Moazzeni Weaves a New Narrative

epistemic adventure

In Anoush Moazzeni’s The drops of the rain become one with me, small mechanisms move inside and above an open grand piano. Wooden structures glide across the piano[...]

Read more » Sara Constant »